The United States is a nation facing a profound and fundamental decision - Who are we going to be? The greatest threat to America's enduring legacy of self-determination, self-reliance, and personal responsibility is the people themselves. The crux of our democratic republic is an active, informed, and responsible citizenry. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." - Wendell Phillips

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

The Hard Sell

Is it the
message, the messenger, the audience, or a combination of all three that
determines how an idea is received? I
believe it is all three, and unfortunately the Obama campaign seems to hold an
advantage in each category. This is not
intended as a compliment of the president; it is a criticism of the American
people.

“Democracy
extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each
man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in
common but one word: equality. But
notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism
seeks equality in restraint and servitude.” – Alexis de Tocqueville

The choice
before us is between two parties, two candidates, and two very different national
visions. An apathetic and dependent population
with a massive government complex as the great provider is the desired end state
of our current administration. Of course
it is not portrayed in this manner as honesty, especially in this case, is not
a winning political strategy. Give
versus earn, owed versus produced, fair share versus fruits of labor, and envy
versus personal responsibility. It is no
surprise that the Republican Party is having a tough time selling their conservative
viewpoint when compared with the coddling beliefs espoused by the increasingly
progressive Democratic Party. The Obama
message is tailored to a growing segment of the American population that feels government
exists to be their caretaker. Couple
this with low expectations and a group encompassing Republicans, Wall Street,
and the rich they serve up as the cause of our country’s general malaise, and
you have a very inviting message on the surface. It is always easier to hear you are the
victim versus the cause of your disappointment or failure. Their message is one of absolution of
personal responsibility. A testament to
a belief that government’s place is to provide and ensure a certain lifestyle to
the masses at the expense of those that have selfishly succeed and in doing so now
somehow deny others that same opportunity.
Unfortunately, what we do not understand is that the basis of this
president’s message is that he thinks very little of us. He is able to make baseless claims, perpetually
lie, dismiss the Constitution and ask for more time after a train wreck of a
first term because he knows we are not paying attention, we are not interested.
He arrogantly believes his vision for
our country is better than the one put forth by the brilliant group of men that
founded our nation. Somehow this current
administration and those that have begun to flock to their crusade of fundamental
change have more faith in a socialistic system of government that has failed
miserably everywhere it has been implemented, than in our own unique democratic
republic and free market capitalism that has made us the envy of the world for
236 years. Cleverly, many have been
convinced to support failure over prosperity and governmental intrusion over self-determination. The message of a parental government with
some measure of assured menial subsistence has proven to be too tempting for
many even though the steep price is the forfeiture of the possibility and
freedom of achieving personal greatness.

"Every
step we take towards making the State our Caretaker of our lives, by that much
we move toward making the State our Master." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

A historic
president is a hard thing to overcome, especially when that historic president
is the benefactor of a myth of limitless potential and anointed our nation’s
great savior without the burden of proof.
With such lofty expectations thrust upon him, it seems inconceivable
that in four short years he is confronting the label of failure as a one term
president. What does it say about us if
we are not willing to give him more time to fulfill his self-proclaimed
destiny? What does it say about us if we
lose faith after just four short years? Half
of us are not willing to honestly answer these questions, and Obama is trying
to shame as many of the other half as possible into ignoring what they know the
answers to be. He is a brilliant
visionary far beyond our comprehension that will lift us up and carry us to the
land of milk and honey, or so the Democratic Party’s propaganda machine would
have us believe. His campaign has done a
masterful job of convincing many that he is the defender of the common people, never
mind his political ideology supports their suppression. He is a man with a past shrouded in self-imposed
and media supported mystery, the little we do know is a mix of hatred and
fringe politics, and yet many identify with Obama more than with Romney for
reasons even they cannot identify. He understands
us more than the out of touch super wealthy successful business man Mitt Romney. This makes sense as the type of success
achieved by Mr. Romney is not ordinary; it is the type that easily evokes
strong feelings of envy, a point the Democrats have railed on ad nauseam. Though Romney’s professional experience and
impressive record of accomplishments is one that would normally inspire
confidence that he is well positioned to fulfill the duties of the presidency,
it boggles the mind how President Obama has been allowed to turn this into a political
negative. And while Obama has had almost
four years in the Oval Office and has proven not to be the answer, large
numbers still prefer him to the Republican challenger. He is the Pied Piper, we are seemingly unable
to resist, even as he leads us over the cliff to irrelevance. He has convinced nearly half the voting
population to dismiss his dismal performance over the last four years, and that
despite our nation’s seemingly stationary “recovery,” he is still the best
option. It does not appear that the hope
a majority of American voters naively placed in Obama in 2008 is something the
much more deserving Romney will be privy to in 2012.

“As the cool
and deliberate sense of the community ought in all governments, and actually
will in all free governments ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers;
so there are particular moments in public affairs, when the people stimulated
by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful
misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they
themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these
critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and
respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to
suspend the blow mediated by the people against themselves, until reason,
justice and truth, can regain their authority over the public mind?” – James Madison
(Federalist No. 63)

Of the three
parts, the one with the most power in the equation of how an idea or message is
received is the audience. We control the
conversation; we decide what we will listen to and what we will accept. The message and messenger must receive our seal
of approval and craft their argument to our liking or it is all for naught. Unfortunately, we are not the nation we once
were. America was rugged individualism
personified. Our ancestors did not come
here to be taken care of or recreate what they left behind in their
homelands. This was going to be a new
and different nation. Here you were not
promised prosperity, but here you had a chance at it. The work required was expected, as they knew greatness
is never achieved without it. They
cherished their newfound freedoms and liberties and would ardently defend them
against any foreign enemy or domestic government that attempted to infringe
upon them. We have now been blessed for
so long that we take it for granted that it will always be this way regardless
of how irresponsible we are with our rights, liberties, finances, and
votes. As I have said before, President
Obama is not the cause of our national decline; he is a result of it. We listen to absurd speeches vilifying
success, capitalism, American exceptionalism, self-reliance, and personal
responsibility. We foolishly elected a
man our national leader that beyond a speech given at the 2004 Democratic
National Convention, we knew nothing about and who conspicuously lacked any
examples of leadership in his artfully veiled past. We justified supporting an ideology that has
failed everywhere it has been instituted, one that is in direct opposition to
our nation’s founding values all in an effort to lay blame for our financial imprudence
at the feet of the Republican Party. We
have foolishly forsaken our cornerstones of ambition, fortitude, and
accountability in hopes that an easier life of entitlement is the result, even
though these core beliefs are what enabled our ascendency to the pinnacle of
human civilization. How inconvenient for the current administration’s strategy. If only we were paying attention.

“The cause
of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.” – Thomas Paine
(Common Sense)

President Obama
is a very arrogant and pretentious man that has nothing but disdain for the
American people, and yet we are on the verge of reelecting him. How can this be? He seems like such a nice guy. The answer is simple, he understands two
things: American society has converted to the religion of government dependency
while at the same time abandoning its civic duties of being aware and
educated citizens in order to restrain and hold government accountable. We are asleep at the wheel; distracted by
claims we are victims being deprived of success, opportunity, and entitlements
we are owed. We are more concerned about
updating our Facebook pages than we are about questioning the motives and
qualifications of our elected leaders.
In a self-consumed society, lies and political spin are just as good as
the truth, if no one is paying attention then there is no difference between fact
and propaganda as they are both blindly accepted on face value. Truth is always subject to the burden of
proof, unless no one demands it. We like
not having to accept responsibility for our nation’s current mess and the
disappointments in our lives; it relieves us of having to cope with the fact
that we are the problem. Our vanity is
being cleverly taken advantage of by a president hell-bent on fundamentally changing
America from a nation based on the principles of individual determination to one
ruled by government decree.

“Let us never
forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The
ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and
congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.” – Franklin
Delano Roosevelt

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